Well, the exhibition promoter gig is finally over, so I guess my poor feet and legs will get to take a well-deserved break now. :)

Here's the thing: I was working at Suntec from Friday till today, at some Malaysian travel fair, outside Carrefour. I was working for this publisher called Goldentree Publications which specialises in and produces only travel-related stuff; things like maps and travel guides. And they needed people to help promote this new travel guide of Malaysia that they had, which really, I did honestly find quite comprehensive.

The thing is, because I didn't have any prior sales experience, I was working solely on commission basis. That was a bit of bummer when I was told, but I thought, why not; could still give it a shot anyway, just to see what it's like; the lady who was conducting the interviews, Josephine, also said that if we turned out to be good, we'd be called back for any roadshows that they had in future.

So here's the breakdown: I actually managed to sell 9 books on Friday; a lot more than I was expecting, haha. I was expecting ZERO, frankly! And in the event of that happening, I'd decided that I'd stop and find a better use for my time elsewhere. But apparently, that didn't happen, so I came back the next day. It turns out that I can actually be very glib when I want to be; surprised me most of all, I tell you. :P

Next day was kind slow, though. Odd for a Saturday, but maybe it was just the crowd. I sold 4 books before lunch, but after about three of four hours when I hadn't managed to sell anything and the people were just pissing me off, I decided to collect my pay and leave early. I actually didn't want to come back for today, but Josephine convinced me to. I thought that maybe I'd just come back in the morning, since I'd observed that during the mornings, when the fair had just opened, the people who wandered into the booth were more keen to buy after listening to me talk.

The only good thing that happened on Saturday was that Kenny and Rachel came by to see me! :D Felt so loved, haha. And Rachel bought me a bottle of Green Tea Honey Lemon drink. Which tasted suspiciously more like lemon tea than green tea, I think. Someone should tell the producer that. :P

Earlier in the day, William had also messaged me asking if the travel fair was on, but it turned out that since it was really just all about Malaysia, selling things like Malaysian resorts and hotels and tours, it didn't really have what he wanted.

I went down today, and just as I expected, the books sold easier in the morning, after which there was a lull period. But the Sunday crowd was good; our booth would actually get very crowded every 10 minutes or so, which was a good thing, coz then we could ambush people and pounce on all the interested ones, haha.

Today, there were 6 promoters around, and apart from one lady who seemed in her early thirties, the remaining five of us were all undergraduates.. sorta. I mingled around with them more today during the slow periods; most of them are from Engin. There's Zhi Han, who'll be going into Engin next academic year; his secondary school friend, Nicholas (who's a bloody joker, haha), who disrupted his NS and entered NUS Engin in the second semester of the last academic year; then there's another guy whose name I actually never found out, who's from Science, and since he's completed Year 4, he's sorta unofficially graduated, haha.

Then there was Fiona, who's this really pretty girl, an Engin Year 2, and it turns out that she was from IJ Toa Payoh! :D No wonder I thought she looked really familiar on the first day. :)

So Sunday turned out to be pretty good; I sold 11 books (double-digit!! YAY!! :D), and at the end of the day, Josephine actually paid me more than just my commission; so nice of her. :) Probably just her way of saying thank you for my effort and everything, especially since on all three days, I was the earliest there and I helped her set up a lot of the stuff and everything. :) During the day she even treated us to lunch, and later on in the evening, she had her husband buy a few of us ice-cream from Carrefour.

Also, she said that she liked me and that she'd call me back in future, and next time, I'll get basic pay! Despite the fact that the job didn't really pay as well as most jobs in the market, being commission based, I'm actually quite proud that I got through it. Now I actually do have some work experience to speak of, and if nothing else, I learned that I can do sales work, hehe. :D